Past Interns Testimonials
Fanny Saillour, University of Corsica, France (Internship April - August 2012)
Veronica Palumbo, Graduated from the University of Trento, Italy (Internship April - August 2012)
Eva van Silfhout, University of Wageningen, Netherlands (Internship April - August 2012)
In April 2012 we arrived at NZTRI to complete a four-month internship. We were warmly welcomed at the Institute and together we quickly started working as a well-organised team of internationals! We have been involved in a variety of projects like the Cook Islands visitor survey, the Get Local project looking at tourism and urban development in different suburbs of Auckland, the potential of cycle tourism and the value of safety tourism in NZ. We have worked on these projects both as a team and also individually.
By helping each other and giving feedback on each other’s work we managed to share our knowledge, develop new skills and grow as professionals. Working within an international team also helped us to improve our interpersonal skills and our ability to work in a multi-cultural environment.
Our time in New Zealand gave us a chance to visit the country and experience the Kiwi culture. We have visited some amazing places and saw many beautiful things. We had a fun day out on the Waitakere Ranges in the West Coast of Auckland with our director Simon Milne. We were also invited on an unexpected two-day trip to Northland with a friendly local Maori guide we met through the Institute. This amazing twilight tour in the Waipoua Forest is something we will never forget!
We enjoyed our time and the three of us became really good friends. Now it’s time for us to finish our Master’s degrees and start job hunting down under! But first, we are going to travel around New Zealand. Our last words: “Sweet as”.
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Romy Fischer (Hochschule Harz, Germany, Feb-May 2012)
My internship at NZTRI was full on from the very first day! I was immediately involved in various projects, attended interesting meetings and was entrusted with responsible tasks. At the same time, I instantly felt at home – thanks to the extremely welcoming and open team, fabulous morning teas and First Friday Lunch Clubs. During my four months at NZTRI I got the chance to enhance my strengths and enlarge upon my personal interests when conduction web audits, undertaking mystery visits to various suburbs of Auckland and preparing presentations for community meetings. What I liked even more, however, were the new challenges I met. While mapping the recreational use of New Zealand’s coastline in a geographic information system, I discovered new skills that I am keen to apply in my future career. But by all means, the kiwi way of living is not just about working! Every weekend, New Zealand’s stunning beaches, sweet as surf breaks and great hiking tracks drew me out of the city. Leaving Aotearoa is certainly not easy… What will stay in my mind for a long, long time are the professional working environment, the certainty that I can become acquainted with any unknown subject and – most of all – the geniality of my workmates. Thanks NZTRI!
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Tim Hartendorp (University of Wageningen, Netherlands, Aug-Dec 2011)
My name is Tim Hartendorp. A lucky student from the Netherlands who was fortunate enough to go to the other side of the planet for his studies.
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Doris Bill (University of Wageningen, Netherlands, Sept-Dec 2011)
I am Doris Anaa Bill, Ghanaian born and undertaking my master degree (Msc) in Leisure Tourism and Environment at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. When I had the opportunity to go to NZTRI for my internship, I was pretty much anxious of how my experience in a completely new environment would be like. But upon arriving in NZTRI I was thrilled with the welcoming environment, the benevolent and highly proficient NZTRI team. I immediately felt part of the family. Nowhere in the world during my lifetime time had I seen such great coordination and effectiveness in executing tasks and producing excellent results in accordance with the vision of the institution.
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Fleur Bonekamp (University of Wageningen, Netherlands; Aug-Dec 2011). I can’t believe my time as an intern at NZTRI is already over. 3 months ago I was a little bit nervous when I entered the office for the first time but I immediately felt at home. I like the all hands on deck spirit where colleagues help each other wherever they can. I’ve met a lot of tourism experts at several meetings and presentations. I found out I have a special interest in the Pacific now after joining the Pacific Islands Trade and Invest Summit 2011 in Auckland. I’m in my second year of the master program Leisure, Tourism and Environment master program at Wageningen University in The Netherlands. Because of my internship experience at NZTRI I’ve found new interests like community development, sense of community and the participation of locals within tourism activities. During my internship I was focussing on a project related to a possible mismatch or gap between visitors’ online and onsite experience. Furthermore, I had the chance to get a better understanding of the relation between tourism and elements like ICT, social media and the integration of rural marine tourism into fishing communities. I would like to thank all of my colleagues and the people I met during my internship at NZTRI for an amazing time.
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Paola Salazar (Griffith University, Queensland, Australia; Mar-May 2011).
After graduating from my Master’s Degree in Tourism and Hospitality Management, I joined the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute as an intern. From the moment I walked into the office, I felt at home. Everyone was really supportive which I regard as one of the key ingredients of creating a great working environment. I got to the opportunity to work with a staff of professionals from different backgrounds and build an international network of contacts. In every sense, my internship at NZTRI has been a positive experience.
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Anne Kaiser, Hanze University Groningen, The Netherlands (Internship February 2011 – July 2011)
I am an International Business and Management student from Germany, who is majoring in International Travel and Tourism. My 6th semester consisted of a 5-month internship that I could complete at NZTRI. During these months I experienced some busy as well as some quiet days. I really enjoyed busy days, where I got the chance to enhance my knowledge concerning qualitative as well as quantitative analysis while working on several projects related to tourism development in New Zealand. Additionally, I could attend some interesting meetings. For instance, I attended a meeting in February where preliminary findings of one of the projects were being presented. And another meeting in April was related to Marketing Tourism in the Rodney District. Furthermore, I could also improve my soft skills, while working in a very international environment. Overall, I am satisfied with the work experience that I could gain during the last months within a very friendly team
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Joke Methorst, University of Wageningen, Netherlands (Internship October 2010 - February 2011) Hospitality, a no-worries mindset, life and academic expertise of the team, an international working environment, genuine appreciation of your input and the ease of how things are dealt with are key terms if I think of my time at NZTRI. It is a great working environment that enabled me to work on the various phases of research. I had the opportunity to finally apply theory into practice by assisting on research in an area that is experiencing rapid tourism development and to see the different perspectives of communities, visitors and businesses. It was inspiring to learn from interesting perspectives from colleagues, to volunteer at the research conference and to get to know New Zealand from a different perspective.Most of my days I spent working on data-analysis and its ‘bubbly’ visualization. One of my last days, I was able to see these efforts during a presentation of the preliminary findings, which was a rewarding and a nice closing of the last 4 months. I really felt part of a team which I regard as one of the key ingredients that made my stay at NZTRI successful. It is the personality of the team that made it a great working environment. Thank you heaps for that! |
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Hille Richter, University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven ( beginning of September –late November 2010)
I joined the extremely welcoming team of the NZTRI last year in September for a 3-months internship. The work atmosphere was very supportive. I was involved in many different projects: e.g. supporting the team with the Access Tourism and the New Zealand Tourism & Hospitality Research Conference, data collection at the Saturday Matakana Market and in various hostels within Auckland, assisting with the Puhoi to Pakiri Research Visitor Strategy Research, etc. The work I did during my internship was very interesting and diversified. I also enjoyed the fact that other international interns worked at the Institute. During my time at the NZTRI, I did not just gain deeper knowledge within the field of conducting tourism related research but I also met great people from all around the world! Thank you NZTRI. |
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Anna Huebner, Aalborg University, Denmark (Intern from late August – late November 2010) "Like most of ‘us’ interns, I joined the NZTRI as part of the fulfillment of the Master’s degree. With only vague ideas in my mind of what would be awaiting me, I felt relieved when I was warmly welcomed from the first day on. Many little highlights filled the four months of my stay, to name but a few: Friday’s morning teas, joining Carolyn for her stakeholder meetings in Matakana, the arrivals of Dominika, Hille and Joke (three other interns), the Access Tourism and the New Zealand Tourism & Hospitality Research Conference, data collections at the Kowhai Festival in Warkworth and at the Saturday market in Matakana, and, in the course of a Spa & Wellness class given at the AUT, a trip to Te Aroha. Yet, I also enjoyed the every-day work at the Institute which has been particularly for the many people around in the office. It has been great to simply exchange thoughts and ideas on a daily basis. Moreover, albeit literature reviews, data collections and analysis’ worked on may have not always related to my personal research interests, I rather thought this to be a nice change and an opportunity to get to know about other areas of tourism research. Repeatedly, I thought to have been given different perspectives which I was able to apply to own research. In this regard, I also enjoyed the almost weekly seminars held by internal or external academics on very diverse contemporary topics of tourism. Overall, it has been very much worth coming all the way to down under and that is, as you may have noticed until now, not only for the beautiful New Zealand scenery. Kia Ora."
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Veroniek Maat from Holland (left) and Celine Genetelli from France (right) Interns April 2010 - September 2010
Celine: "Working here was really rewarding, and I learnt a lot about academic research. Writing a research article with Geoff and Ken was a great experience as well, and I hope I will find a way to continue research back in France. Thank you again for everything, I really enjoyed my time here !"
Veroniek: " Working at NZTRI was a great opportunity for me to explore the world of tourism research. I met some great people in and outside of the office associated with NZTRI who inspired me and advised me for my future plans. I got the chance to write about an interesting topic (access tourism) and improved my writing skills. Apart from working at NZTRI, I planned some time to travel around New Zealand and even to one of the Pacific Islands which completed my ‘abroad internship’ experience!"
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Leonie Friedlein West Coast University of Applied Sciences, Germany (December 2009 – January 2010) As part of my master’s degree ‘International Tourism Management’ I spent a semester abroad at AUT. I found a lot of interest in its various projects so I decided to extend my stay in New Zealand and to do a two month work experience placement at NZTRI. During my time at the institute, I mainly worked on a project dealing with the evaluation of the ’Our Space Exhibition’ at the Te Papa Museum of New Zealand. I was involved in several stages of the project, starting from the general literature review and preparing the research tools, as well as conducting the actual research including observations and interviews in Wellington. Furthermore, I helped to analyze the data and write up the final report. It was a great and very valuable experience to get to know the whole process and be part of a research team. This project gave me the opportunity to further improve my research skills and also to gain practical work experience, which will be very beneficial for my future studies. Moreover, I really enjoyed the working environment and had a good time with all the friendly and welcoming colleagues from all over the world.
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Natalia Piñeros Arenas
Intern October 2009 – January 2010
"I am from Bogotá, Colombia; I am doing a Msc.Leisure, Tourism and Environment at Wageningen University in The Netherlands. I did my internship at the NZTRI as a fulfilment of my Master program, and I can say that it was a great experience! The opportunity I had of gaining more international working experience and also getting to know experts in the field was very good; I especially liked that your skills, knowledge and ideas are considered as important added value. The Institute is a good place for learning by doing being involved in diverse real life tourism projects that are developed for a variety of clients on the local, regional, national and international arena.
My internship was also a gateway to enjoy and discover this beautiful country and its amazing nature and landscapes, I loved it! Thank you NZTRI for letting me be part of your team, it was great meeting you all"
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Agnes Sirima (Now Assistant Lecturer, Department of Wildlife Management, Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro, Tanzania) I am Agnes Sirima, a Tanzanian by birth. I did my first degree in Wildlife Management at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania and completed in November, 2006. Prior to my Masters I was working with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism in Tanzania as a game officer. I started Masters in Leisure, Tourism and Environments at Wageningen University in September, 2008 and did my Internship at NZTRI as a fulfilment to my Masters. My research interest areas are tourism and community development (policy and research) and animal ecology (behavioral and community ecology). |
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Elisabeth Andriopoulu, University of Wageningen, Netherlands
(Internship February-April 2009)
My name is Elisabeth and I am Greek German. I did my first degree in economics in Athens and then I started a MSC in Leisure Tourism & Environment at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. I am doing my internship at NZTRI as part of my masters. My area of interest in spiritual tourism and community based tourism. I am particularly interested in rural development and how tourism can contribute to that.
Why did I choose New Zealand? Because it’s a wonderful country; and I wanted an experience of a developed country with plentiful of beautiful nature. Why NZTRI? I was given a lecture by Simon who presented us some of the interesting projects that the institute undertakes and I immediately knew that I would like to be part of it. It is a friendly and inspiring working environment and I am learning a lot of interesting things which will be useful for my future research. |
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Naomi Kibe, Oita, Japan
(Internship October-January 2009)
I am Japanese and I have been learning about interpretation for natural resources recently. Nature conservation is my biggest interest.
I found the website of NZTRI when I was looking for an internship in New Zealand to learn about the country and its nature conservation. Since tourism is one of New Zealand’s main industries and many visitors are attracted by the natural beauty of the country, I thought working for NZTRI might give me good experiences to achieve my objectives.
In NZTRI, I have been working for the project related to trekking and hiking in New Zealand and Australia lately. I did some of the trails by myself during my stay in the country!
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Odette Verheij, University of Wageningen, Netherlands I am currently in the final phase of my MSc Leisure, Tourism and Environment at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. This meant for me doing my internship and I chose to do this abroad. My field of interest is quite broad, but mainly focusing on the policy of recreational and tourism space & place/land use planning, tourist typologies and the quest for authenticity. I heard about NZTRI through word-of-mouth of former students; the persons I talked to were very excited about their experiences at NZTRI (and they are right!). After some interesting lectures of Simon Milne it was completely clear for me: I wanted to do my internship at NZTRI. And I never have had any regrets, because it is a wonderful team of people with a lot of experience, who can really help you to improve your research skills. At this moment I work mainly on two projects, one about quality management in SMEs in Auckland and the other one about the economic impact of marine tourism on local communities. These projects involve using different research skills like creating interview questions, qualitative and quantitative data analysis and literature reviewing. The different projects and tasks keep it challenging, together with being abroad and the wonderful team of NZTRI it creates my ‘lifetime memorable experience’. |
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Eduard Pasma, University of Wageningen, Netherlands
(Internship May - September 2008) I started my internship at NZTRI in May 2008 as part of my Master Leisure, Tourism and Environment at Wageningen University, The Netherlands. My bachelor degree is in International Development Studies, with a specialization in Technology, Communication and Policy. I also finished a minor in Public Governance and Management at Utrecht University. During my master I worked on a project for the Dutch Zoo Organization; “The (non-)participation of Dutch non-native residents to Dutch Zoos.” For my bachelor degree I conducted field-research in Devon, UK, on “Social life in small rural communities”. My research interests are in the field of Marine-tourism and Eco-tourism and the management and governance in these fields. I have experience with both quantitative and qualitative research and the different research methods and analysis that are involved in the research process. |
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Andrea Gelsomino, Italy
(Internship May - October 2008)
I started my internship at the end of May 2008 after having finished my Masters in Destination Management and Sustainable Tourism at TSM, University of Trento, Italy. As a Masters Thesis, I participated to a research project about destination branding in the alpine context, with a case study on Val Gardena. My interests are outdoor activities, sport & adventure tourism in general. I have a particular interest for the mountain environment and for winter activities like alpine skiing, ski touring and cross-country skiing. My main research interests are:
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Alison Plumb, Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg, Germany (Internship June - September 2008) I graduated from the University of Birmingham, UK in 2006 with a BA Hons in Political Science. At Birmingham I worked on a research project investigating British MPs’ voting behaviour on foxhunting legislation in the House of Commons. My research contributed to a data set containing information about the MPs voting behaviour, a survey of the votes as they were reported in British newspapers and an analysis of the Parliamentary debates on fox hunting. In 2007 I began studying for my MA in Social Sciences at Albert-Ludwigs Universität Freiburg in Germany. The degree is jointly awarded by the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban South Africa, where I spent one semester taking taught courses and researching Corporate Social Responsibility at Unilever South Africa. As part of the research group, I helped to organise and took part in interviews with staff at the CSR department at Unilever, as well as the stakeholders involved with Unilever’s projects.
In May 2008 I completed my guest semester at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India where I took taught courses for my MA. I moved to Auckland in June 2008 to join NZTRI as a research intern, where I have been working on projects about marine tourism, Niue islanders and cultural festivals in New Zealand. I have broad research interests. I enjoy finding out about all aspects of politics and society, especially in relation to environmental issues. Currently, at NZTRI I have had the opportunity to develop ideas for my MA thesis, which will investigate the implications of bio-security on tourism. |
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Stefano Andreotti, Italy (Internship 2007-2008)
I spent at NZTRI almost an entire year back in 2007 after I concluded my master Studies in Tourism management at the Trentino School of Management of Trento University in Italy. What I most appreciated at the beginning was the welcoming environment and the strong sense of team there was in the organization. I felt immediately at ease and I started working with other interns and staff members on different projects involving data analysis, benchmark analysis and economic impacts analysis of tourism events. That, together with responsible tourism marketing and destination marketing , are my favorite research topics. Nowadays I am setting up, together with my friend Fabio, a tourism consultancy company – Antipodi Tourism – whose mission is to innovate the way responsible and sustainable tourism are managed and marketed in the Italian tourism industry. Antipodi is also working for the establishement of a tour operator in which the principles of responsible tourism are translated into holiday proposals. Insoliti Percorsi (“unusual paths”) work with small wineries and niche producers for creating unique experience for food & wine passionates.
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Other Testimonials
Magdalena Rungaldier
Intern August – December 2004
Bachelor degree in Tourism Management – Free University of Bolzano-Bozen
In 2004, as part of my Bachelor studies, I did a 20 weeks internship at the NZTRI.
A lot of time has passed since then: I finished my Bachelor studies, worked on a European River Cruise Ship and since 2007 I am project manager in a North Italian marketing agency. Still I am really thankful that I had the opportunity to work as a research assistant at the institute. I co-developed different tourism projects regarding New Zealand and researched on tourism destinations worldwide, my main project was the „Waikato Lakes Tourism Development Feasibility Study“. The working environment was always friendly and really inspiring. So for 5 months I was given the possibility to collaborate with true tourism experts, I got important business insights and learned how good and target-aimed research has to be done. My time at the NZTRI did not only help me with my thesis writing but throughout my professional experience so far. Thank you!
Erika Petersons
Coming to NZTRI gave me an opportunity to practice the quantitative and qualitative research skills that I had acquired at Wageningen University and my undergraduate studies. By working on a series of projects that were assigned to me over the past five months, I have input data, analysed the findings, assisted in the writing of reports and summaries for annotated bibliographies, as well as reviewed and improved a questionnaire that was sent to hostels nation-wide. In other areas, I have assisted senior researchers in creating a web-survey for the sports events industry in New Zealand. Part of this project included the creation of a database.
Upon reflection of my time at NZTRI, I have gained exposure not only to the work of NZTRI, but also to the research work of my colleagues. Working here has sharpened my research skills, as well as added and built on my skill set. This has been a valuable experience that I will never forget!
Bas Peeters
Universtiy of Wageningen
Wageninging
Netherlands
The 4 months internship at the NZTRI has been a pleasant stay. Not only because of the things I have learned but also because of the nice work environment which is really important to me, the facilities at work were good and the team of colleagues and supervisor were great and very helpful. In this period I have learned a lot during my internship, especially about quantitative research, data analysis, literature review, working in a team, working on a variety of projects, and lots more. I was able to work in a research institute and got an opportunity to see what is going on in the field of tourism and leisure research. For this I want to thank everybody who I worked with during this period and who made it a pleasant and great (working) experience, which definitely will be very helpful in the future.
Inge Herman
Masters program of Leisure
Tourism and Environment at Wageningen University
Netherlands.
I carried out an internship in the period August – December 2005 at NZTRI. One of my largest tasks included gathering and selecting useful information for the partial development of a comprehensive on-line tourism toolkit to support small and medium tourism enterprises in the South Pacific region and those who train them. Another task included organising and conducting focus group discussion concerning the feasibility of a cruise ship around the outer islands in the South Pacific.
During both projects the supervision and guidance are very well organised. Although you work independently on a part of the project there is always room to ask questions. Furthermore, the work atmosphere is very open and most colleagues have an international background. Overall, I have very good memories to both my internship as well as my stay in New Zealand. As a female student I felt relatively safe and have not experienced moments of fear or threat. Furthermore it suprised me that most people are friendly and very willing to help out with any difficulties. To conclude, I would recommend this internship to every motivated and self-confident student.
Mina Sato
I am Mina from Japan and I worked as an intern from June-August 2005 at NZTRI, in order to gain work experience from New Zealand. The first few days, I was trying to learn my job and adjust to a new environment that was different from what I was used to. But the people at NZTRI were very friendly and helped me a lot. I studied surveying as a part of my sociology course at Seton Hill University, USA and NZTRI gave me the opportunity to improve on this knowledge by experiencing the 'whole' process of research surveying. This internship also gave me a chance to come and to do some sightseeing in New Zealand. I had a very good time in this country and if I get another chance to visit, I would like to come back.
All Past Interns
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Ai Hao Benoit Ferreira Berengere Crouzet Elisabeth Andriopoulu Inge Hermann |
Ivana Sipkova Pascal Languillon Romy Fischer Tom Van Beers Xiaoxiao Zhu |
